Rainbow Six Siege Beta: 10 Big Things You Need To Know
10. There's No Character Customisation
Yeah, who saw this coming? Whilst the overall message from the beta has been one that's very positive, it's very much a case of taking two steps forward and one step back. Part of what was so great about the previous two entries in the series (Vegas 1 & 2) was that players really got to carve out their own identity in the online arena. Everything from headgear to fatigues and more could be chosen from a wide variety of equipment, adding to the feeling of comprising a part of a unit 'without borders', if you will. Siege's class-based approach would of course be able to accommodate visual customisation, but bar a few weapons skins offerings in this area are fairly bland. The FPS has forgone individuality altogether in favour of carving out characters from each unit that comprises Rainbow, but without a story present this feature feels like an odd addition to the title. Worse still, character classes (divided on the basis of attack and defence) vastly limit the player's freedom in being able to carve out their own role on the battlefield. Rainbow always worked best when players had their own identity, so it's a bit of a puzzle why this latest iteration has gotten rid of the feature altogether.
WhatCulture's very own resident movie guy, Ewan has been working in the content creation biz for over 10 years now, having started as a freelance contributor to WhatCulture Gaming all the way back in 2015. After graduating with a First-Class Honours in History from Northumbria University in 2017 (where he won a prize for a totally killer dissertation on the Watergate years), Ewan took on the role of Comics Editor at WhatCulture and quickly developed WhatCulture Comics into one of the biggest superhero-focused channels on YouTube. He followed this with a brief hiatus at Screen Rant in 2021, where he worked across the Gaming and Film sections as a writer and editor, before returning to WhatCulture as a Senior Content Producer / Presenter in 2023. He started his own podcast, We Love Dad Movies, in 2022, and has contributed several written pieces to the Eisner-nominated comics website Shelfdust as well.
In his current role, Ewan incorporates his love of cinema, comic books, and history into written pieces and video essays for WhatCulture's Film & TV channel, as well as WhatCulture Gaming and WhatCulture Horror, with a particular focus on nineties-era Dad Movies, old school Westerns, and Golden Age Hollywood Noir. John Carpenter is his fave, and he thinks Batman Beyond should never have been cancelled. If that's your vibe, you'll probably like his stuff.
